Florida Ostrich Farm

Ostrich-drawn cart, ca. 1917.

One of the more amusing categories of images that regularly show up in retrospectives on Jacksonville history are photos and postcards of ostriches doing unostrichlike things like pulling carts, being ridden and otherwise treated like horses. The picture above, taken around 1917, is one of the most commonly seen, but literally dozens more can be found in a quick Google Images search. It’s easy to see why these pictures are popular today: in addition to depicting the quirky side of “old time” Jacksonville, they provide a look at the early foundations of the weird, touristy bent Florida has gone in ever since. By remaining memorable over a century later, these photos have certainly done their job. But what’s the story behind them?

As the wording on the cart indicates, this and most of the other images come from the Florida Ostrich Farm, which operated in Jacksonville in different forms from 1898 to 1937. In 1885, Edwin Cawston imported ostriches from Africa to start America’s first major ostrich farm in Pasadena, California. Others subsequently popped up around the country, taking advantage of the adaptability of ostriches as well as the high demand for their feathers, used to make boas, hats, and other fancy accoutrements of the time. These farms quickly emerged as full-on visitor attractions. Cawston’s Pasadena farm was such a hit that he opened a second one in Jacksonville, originally at Talleyrand Avenue and Jessie Street. Specifically designed to attract and entertain tourists, the Florida Ostrich Farm allowed visitors to drive ostrich carts, pose with the birds for photographs, and watch them race. The park was so successful that in 1912 it moved to a larger location in Phoenix Park, near Evergreen Cemetery. The new farm featured performances - Annie Oakley showed off her sharpshooting there - as well as alligators brought in by Alligator Joe Campbell.

The Florida Ostrich Farm suffered from growing competition from other attractions that began taking over Florida in the early 20th century, including Dixieland Park, which opened at what’s now Treaty Oak Park on the Southbank in 1907. The original incarnation of Dixieland Park went out of business in 1916, after which point the Florida Ostrich Farm took over the space. The picture above is from these Southbank digs, showing the Park Theater, part of a one time movie studio, in the background. The photograph shows Oliver W. Jr., the “driving ostrich,” a star performer who apparently features in many of the ostrich cart images produced at the park. Not even the talents of Oliver W. could save the flagging business, however. It declined and ultimately closed in 1937, leaving behind only pictures to remind modern Jaxsons that immense African birds once thrived in the city’s urban core.

Charlie Griffin, victim of Ax Handle Saturday

Life Magazine, “Racial Fury Over Sit-Ins,” September 12, 1960

This photo of a young Charlie Griffin, bloodied and dazed, is the most striking image from one of Jacksonville’s darkest days: August 27, 1960, better known now as Ax Handle Saturday. During the height of the civil rights movement, the Jacksonville Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), led by a 16-year-old Rodney Hurst, had been organizing sit-ins at the the whites-only lunch counters of Woolworth’s and W.J. Grant Department Store in Downtown Jacksonville to peacefully protest the business’ segregation policies. The sit-ins had proceeded without much incident for two weeks, but on August 27, a crowd of enraged white people, evidently organized by the Ku Klux Klan, set upon the protesters with bats and wooden ax handles. While they initially focused their attacks on the protesters, the mob soon turned its fury on every black person it came across.

Charlie Griffin, a student at Northwestern Jr.-Sr. High School, was one such victim. As Rodney Hurst wrote in his 2008 book It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke, Griffin was not part of the Jacksonville Youth Council or the sit-ins, and was in fact only downtown to do his shopping. As Hurst wrote, Griffin’s offense of “shopping while black” was enough to draw the ire of an ax handle-wielding segregationist. With a touch of dark humor, Griffin later told Hurst that while he was walking, “this white guy” ran up and swung on him with his ax handle. As Griffin defended himself from that first attacker, others arrived and beat him viciously. Attacks like those on Griffin continued largely unabated until a black street gang called the Boomerangs started fighting back, at which point the police finally stepped in. In the end, 50 people were injured and 62 were arrested, 48 of whom were African Americans.

*In another iconic image from Jacksonville’s civil rights history, Rodney Hurst and the Jacksonville Youth Council hold their first sit-in at Woolworth’s on Hogans Street on Saturday, August 13.

Reporters talk to Rodney Hurst and the Jacksonville Youth Council during the group’s first sit-in on August 13, 1960. Courtesy of the UNF Digital Commons Rodney Lawrence Hurst Sr. Papers.

Jacksonville’s local papers, the Florida Times-Union and Jacksonville Journal, barely covered the attacks, but outside publications like The New York Times, St. Petersburg Times and Life Magazine were there to punch through the veil of willful blindness. In its September 12 issue, Life chronicled the events in a brief pagelong piece that included two photographs of Griffin. Neither the photographer nor the writer are identified. The first image shows Griffin being attacked by an older white man in the street as others look on. The second is the above image, depicting the aftermath: a bewildered-looking Griffin, face gashed, shirt spattered with blood, being escorted by a police officer. The caption succinctly reads “Rescued by cop: Charlie Griffin… had his head bashed by an ax handle.”

While Jacksonville’s leadership and institutions tried to play down Ax Handle Saturday, the image of Griffin persisted as a haunting reminder of what occurred that day. The attacks did not keep the sit-in from making progress, as the downtown lunch counters agreed to integrate the next year, one of several civil rights victories won over the next few years. In 2000, the city commemorated Ax Handle Saturday with a historical marker describing the events of the day. Since that time, the photo of Griffin has commonly featured in retrospectives on the attacks and on Jacksonville’s civil rights history. In 2010, the photo was included in two exhibitions marking the 50th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday at the University of North Florida and the Ritz Theater and Museum. In 2018, the University of North Florida Center for Urban Education and Policy sponsored a mural that included the image of Griffin and other scenes from local civil rights history at the corner of A. Philip Randolph Boulevard and Jessie Street.

The Pulitzer-winning Kiss of Life

Mayor Hans Tanzler, Lee Meredith and the “Bold New City” (you know the one)

Lou Egner, Jacksonville Journal, October 1968

If you’ve lived in Jacksonville for long, you’ve probably seen this photo. It’s by far the most famous image related to the Consolidation of the city of Jacksonville with Duval County, and it’s likely the best known in Jacksonville history. Not bad considering it originated with a fairly routine publicity stunt intended to draw people to see a road sign being installed, and was never even published at the time.

When it went into effect on October 1, 1968, the Jacksonville Consolidation transformed the city overnight. It merged the city and county governments into one and added all formerly unincorporated land in Duval County – everything except for Baldwin and the three Beaches cities - into Jacksonville’s municipal boundaries. Consolidation was the biggest change to Jacksonville’s government since its incorporation in the 19th century, and made the city the largest in the contiguous United States.

With Consolidation taking effect, Mayor Hans Tanzler and his team looked for ways to celebrate the accomplishment. As Tanzler told The Florida Times-Union in 2005, the idea behind the famous picture came from his public relations head, Jack Newsome. Newsome felt that the installation of new city limit signs at the county line would make a perfect photo op, and Tanzler agreed. Knowing the event would need a bit more than a road sign to draw in the media and public, Newsome arranged for some celebrity endorsement. Actor Lee Meredith, perhaps best known for playing Ulla the sexy Swedish receptionist in the 1967 Mel Brooks film The Producers, was in Jacksonville performing in the play Champagne Complex at the Alhambra Theatre. She agreed to participate.

The new city limit sign was to be installed on San Jose Boulevard by Julington Creek. Initially, Newsome wanted Meredith to put up the sign, with Tanzler holding the ladder, but Tanzler refused. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck,” he told the Times-Union. “If I do that, it’s going to be immediately assumed I had advantages a lot of people would like to have. So I said, ‘I’ll get up there and she can hand it to me.’” The now-famous photo was only one of several shot by Jacksonville Journal photographer Lou Egner that day. Egner’s photo captures a particularly memorable mise-en-scène: Meredith kicking one leg out, Tanzler grinning, and down below, the ladder holder doing exactly what Tanzler had wanted to avoid: looking up. That last cheeky detail has only contributed to the picture’s enduring popularity.

The photo that Jacksonville Journal readers saw in 1968. Lou Egner, Jacksonville Journal, October 1968.

As well known as the photo is today, it’s not the one readers saw back in 1968. As Mark Woods of the Times-Union wrote, the Jacksonville Journal published three of Egner’s photos that day, including one of Tanzler and Meredith holding the sign. But in that shot Tanzler isn’t looking at the camera, Meredith isn’t kicking her leg out, and “Ladder Guy” is nowhere to be seen. It was only in 2000 that Times-Union photo editor Jack Luedke dug up the version that’s now famous while sorting through the joint Times-Union and Jacksonville Journal archives for a book commemorating the millennium. Since that time, the photo has been everywhere, to the point that most don’t realize it was never seen back in the ’60s.

Viewed in the 21st century, the photo is, to put it charitably, dated. A 2005 Cummer Museum exhibit on historic Jacksonville photography that prominently featured the shot drew some critical, even angry responses. But for others, it provides an unforgettable image that reflects not only an important historical moment, but the state of politics and American society in the 1960s. At any rate, the publicity stunt succeeded beyond all possible expectations, to the point that 30 years later it produced an image that has firmly lodged itself in the local imagination.

One interesting thing about Ladder Guy: no one knows who he is. Or rather, most who knew his identity had died by the time folks thought to look into it, including Tanzler and Newsome. In 2019, The Florida Times-Union asked Tanzler’s son Hans Tanzler III and Tyrie W. Boyer, son of the elder Tanlzer’s law partner Tyrie A. Boyer, if they knew his identity, but neither could solve the mystery. Boyer recalled that his father and Tanzler had once told him the man’s name, but he couldn’t recall it. Like so many others in Jacksonville history, Ladder Guy’s real name belongs to the ages.

Mayor Jake Godbold and the catfish

Jack Luedke, Times-Union archive, April 1987

Jake Godbold (1933 – 2020) served as Mayor from 1979 – 1987 and as the city’s top cheerleader throughout his 86 years on earth. He provided no shortage of iconic images throughout his career, but none captures the essence of the man as well as this photo of a grinning Jake holding up a prize catfish while addressing a crowd.

The photograph comes from the eighth annual Mayor’s Fish-A-Thon in April 1987, hosted at Hanna Park. At the time, Jake was reaching the end of his second term in office. The Fish-A-Thon was one of several programs he started in his first year for senior citizens, who Jake dubbed the Mayor’s Older Buddies, or “MOB.” The MOB was special to the mayor. Having grown up in the Brentwood projects, he saw himself as a champion of the little people, the plain folks, the have-nots. He was also an avid fisherman, so a fishing tournament for his MOB made perfect sense. The catfish Jake is holding in the picture was a prizewinning three-pounder caught by a senior named Johnnie Mae Jackson, a resident of the Twin Towers senior community on the Northside. In the photo, Jake is beaming as he extols Jackson’s accomplishment to the gathered MOB.

The picture was shot by Florida Times-Union photographer Jack Luedke, although it doesn’t appear to have run in the paper at the time. However, it so perfectly encapsulated Jake’s spirit that the editors dug it up later for stories about him, republishing it so many times that it has become one of the most famous images of the former mayor. Another politician posing with a fish might have looked bumpkinish. Worse, a suit-wearing pol in such a pose could easily have come off as out of their element and silly. But Jake, with his easy confidence, comfort in his own skin and showman’s smile, looks perfectly natural clutching a catfish in a tailored suit.

As the picture suggests, in many ways Jake was a bridge between worlds, or at least the different sides of Jacksonville. He revered his working class roots while challenging the city to think big and move forward, and he led by example. Some days he hosted fishing tournaments for his senior constituents. Other days he worked every possible angle to bring major league sports to Jacksonville, efforts that ultimately paid off when the city was awarded the Jaguars in 1993. Some days Jake handled city business from his favorite table at Fred Cotten’s Landmark Barbecue. Others, he planned out major projects like the Landing, the Southbank Riverwalk, and the Jacksonville Jazz Festival. In everything he did, Jake encouraged Jacksonville both to embrace itself and to dream limitless dreams. Though not as well known as other projects, the Mayor’s Fish-a-Thon continues today, part of the lasting legacy Jake left behind.

Memorial Park: “Life in the River”

Mark Krancer, “Life in the River”, September 11, 2017.

On September 11, 2017, Jacksonville faced down Hurricane Irma, the most damaging storm in city history. With the St. Johns River system already swollen with rain from a powerful nor’easter, Jacksonville saw brutal, historic storm surges as Irma made its way from the southwest. Record floodwaters swallowed whole blocks, winds toppled trees and structures, and thousands were pushed out of their homes.

That day, photographer Mark Krancer, a resident of Riverside, got a text from his pastor telling him of the flooding in his neighborhood. Memorial Park was under four feet of water, he said, and Mark had better evacuate. Krancer replied, “I’m going to go take pictures.” He grabbed his camera and headed to the flooded Memorial Park.

The park, a memorial to the 1,200 Floridians who died in World War I, was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, who had previously designed Manhattan’s Central Park. Its central feature is the 1924 sculpture “Life,” created by St. Augustine sculptor Charles Adrian Pillars. With this sculpture, Pillars took a more abstract approach than most war memorials. His work features a globe of swirling waters on which human figures struggle for freedom, while the winged figure of Youth rises triumphantly above, holding an olive branch. Pillars intended the piece to represent the victory of the human spirit over the war’s devastation. Since its installation, “Life” has been one of Jacksonville’s most beloved pieces of public art.

Krancer had a special connection to the Memorial Park. He came to Jacksonville in 2014, looking for a new start. Visiting Riverside on his first day in town, he came across Memorial Park and the “Life” sculpture, and he knew Riverside was where he wanted to be. He took a job at The Florida Times-Union, where he did everything from shipping and receiving to scheduling and arranging ads. His seven minute bike rides to work every day took him past the park, and also inspired his interest in photography. “I would just catch sunrises on the way and take photos on my cell phone,” he said. When someone gifted him a camera, Memorial Park became his favorite place to hone his skills. Before long, he had started his own business, Kram Kran Photo. The park has remained special to Krancer; he even had his first date with his wife there.

But when he got closer to the river that day, he saw that his familiar and well loved route had been transformed by the floodwaters. “It was very intense,” he said, “seeing my everyday scene turned into this… otherworld of water.” He realized he would not be able to reach the park by car, but he encountered a few friends, and together they decided to brave the flooded streets on foot. When they arrived, they found that Memorial Park was totally inundated. Krancer waded into knee-deep water, but he didn’t have lenses he needed to take the pictures he wanted from that distance. “I said okay, I’ve got to take the plunge,” said Krancer. Holding his phone in one hand and his camera in the other, he waded further until he was close to the “Life” statue – and standing in waist-deep in water. He shot around 300 photos in the park, but one in particular stood out. This image, which Krancer titled “Life in the River,” catches the “Life” sculpture just as waves dramatically crash around it, the waters so high that it’s impossible to tell the flooded park from the St. Johns.

Krancer shared his image with friends on Facebook, and then went out to take more pictures of flood-wracked Riverside and San Marco. Before he knew it, his friends were sharing his picture, as were their friends – by the thousands. Krancer estimates that around a million people saw his viral photo in the first few days. “Life in the River” quickly became the defining image of Hurricane Irma’s destruction in Jacksonville, and it’s easy to see why. The imagery of waters surrounding a classically-inspired sculpture give the picture a distinctly Atlantean aspect, befitting a photographic record of the threat that extreme weather and climate change pose to a rapidly growing river city. At the same time, the image is hopeful. The victorious figure that Pillars intended to represent the triumph of life over war here appears to be rising, still victorious, over natural cataclysm.

Poetically, Krancer used the image to help restore Memorial Park after Irma, selling prints to raise funds for the Memorial Park Association to repair the badly damaged park. Prints of this and other works, as well as Krancer’s book about his life before and after “Life in the River,” are available on his website. Today, years after the hurricane, “Life in the River” continues to circulate and inspire, and no doubt will continue to do so for a long time.

Article by Bill Delaney. Contact Bill at wdelaney@moderncities.com.

Bill’s book Secret Jacksonville, a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure is out now. Order a signed copy at thejaxsonmag.com/books.